Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Okay, let's not look at this as giving an Emmy to a show that has already been cancelled.

Let's just forget our troubles for a day and share the feeling of gathering around the computer to learn that someone in your newsroom has won the big one.

Here's how it looked in Detroit, where they can only afford to deliver a hard copy of the paper three days a week.

Free Press reporters Jim Schaefer and M.L. Elrick were the first to uncovertext messages showing that Kilpatrick and his aide and lover, Christine Beatty,had lied under oath at a 2007 police whistle-blower trial. At the civil trial,they denied having an affair or firing Deputy Chief Gary Brown.

Dozens of newsroom staffers crowded around Elrick’s and Schaefer’s desksMonday as the 3 p.m. announcement neared. When the news flashed on the computerscreens, Schaefer and Elrick grinned and hugged, and the staff broke intoprolonged cheers and applause.

“This is something you want to do your whole life, once you realize youwant to be in newspapers, and I’ve been in that position since the fifth grade,”Elrick said.